Ellis Rowan: Colonialism and Nature Painting

Overview

Born in Melbourne in 1848, Ellis Rowan was part of a generation of trailblazing women travellers, whose botanical explorations and adventurous solo journeys took them to foreign and remote places. In service to European colonial powers, their botanical knowledge was commodified for territorial expansion and profit.

While her life's work was in documenting the natural landscape — brilliantly recorded in her watercolours of plants and flowers, insects and small animals — Rowan's access to her subject matter was made possible by her status as part of a prominent family and an interconnected web of pastoralists throughout Australia, as well as Britain and many of its colonies.

Effectively an emissary for British colonialism, Rowan recorded its progress while relying on First Nations peoples as collectors, guides and servants. At the same time, she witnessed their sanctioned 'dispersal' and the dispossession of their lands by pastoralists and settlers.

The 125 paintings acquired by Queensland Museum in 1912 — some now too fragile for display — comprise meticulously detailed depictions of plants and flowers encountered by Rowan during her six field trips to tropical Far North Queensland.

The exhibition Ellis Rowan: Colonialism and Nature Painting pays tribute to an exceptional woman who pushed the boundaries of what women could achieve in art, exploration, travel and science. The selection of artworks and objects presented also invites viewers to consider Ellis Rowan’s encounters with First Nations people, Country and Culture, and the circumstances that enabled her extensive oeuvre.

Visit the exhibition at Queensland Museum Cobb+Co, Toowoomba, until 21 April 2025.
Visit Collections Online to see all 125 of Ellis Rowan’s paintings held in the Queensland Museum Collection.

Ellis Rowan: Colonialism and Nature Painting is also available in Braille and eBraille through Braille House.

Publication details

ISBN: 978 0 9756623 1 1
Paperback, 250 x 210 mm (portrait), full colour, 80pp
Date of publication: July 2024
Published by Queensland Museum
Authors: Bianca Beetson, Judith Hickson, Jeanette Hoorn